The present invention relates to a disc array device integrating a hardware diagnostic function and a diagnostic control method of the disc array device and, particularly, to a technique effectively applied to a diagnosis of the device during its operation.
Conventionally, a hardware diagnosis of a disc array device has been made as follows. That is, before shipment of the disc array device, respective packages constituting the disc array device are individually hardware-diagnosed using a package tester (in-circuit tester). Or, after the shipment of the disc array device, a dedicated program is executed in the disc array device, whereby the hardware diagnosis is made in an assembled state of the respective packages.
Further, as a technique for diagnosing each functional block of a semiconductor device having been shipped already, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-68865 discloses a self-diagnosis apparatus of a semiconductor device, in which a self-diagnosis circuit is provided in each functional block, and diagnostic conditions are transmitted from a self-diagnostic controller to each functional block in accordance with the diagnostic program stored preliminarily in a memory, and a normal or abnormal display is indicated based on diagnostic results from the self-diagnostic circuit of each functional block.